This invention relates to aquarium equipment, and more particularly to a removable power pack unit incorporating a motor and pump which can be selectively utilized to operate an aquarium filter or an aquarium vacuum.
Aquarium filters are well known in the art for the prupose of aeration and filtration of the aquarium water and at the same time provides circulation to such water. Generally, such filters require a pump to draw the water into the filter with the pump being operated by a motor. One type of motor and pump assembly which has been utilized effectively in aquarium filters is the magnetically coupled impeller. In these units, a motor is provided which is magnetically coupled to a magnet which is free to rotate about a shaft. The rotation of the magnet controls the rotation on an impeller which serves to draw water into the filter.
One type of external filter which incorporates such type of magnetically coupled impeller unit is described in my co-pending application Ser. No. 456,424 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,885 filed on Jan. 7, 1983 entitled "Aquarium Filter Assembly" and assigned to the asignee of the present invention. The entire disclosure of that application is hereinincorporated by reference. In that application there is described an external aquarium filter assembly which includes a housing having an intake receiving chamber in flow communication with a filter chamber. A removable unitary intake assembly is associated with the receiving chamber and a spillway is associated with the filter chamber for discharge of the clean water back into the aquarium tank.
In the aforementioned co-pending application, the removable unitary intake assembly includes an inverted U-shaped series of tubes including an inlet flow tube as one leg of the assembly and a discharge tube as the other leg. A pump impeller unit is supported in depending fashion from the discharge tube and is retained as part of the uintary intake assembly. A motor unit is provided as a separate unit which is supported underneath the filter housing unit. With the removable unitary intake assembly inserted in place on the filter housing, the pump impeller unit extends downwardly into a tube depending from the housing unit and which is received within the motor unit. As a result, the pump impeller unit is magnetically coupled to the motor unit and is caused to rotate by that motor unit.
Although such filter apparatus is extremely useful and easy to clean, another way of achieving the same beneficial results is to combine the pump impeller unit with the motor unit in a single composite assembly and maintain that separate from the intake unit. In doing so, there can be provided a single power pack unit which can be removed from the filter assembly separate and apart from the intake assembly which can be removed independently therefrom.
With the separate removable power pack unit, the same unit can then be utilized for powering other devices. Specifically, there is known in the art to utilize an aquarium vacuum to clean the debris from an aquarium tank. Specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 3,549,015 issued on Dec. 22, 1970 to the inventor of the present application, describes an adjustable hand operated aquarium cleaning pump. In that patent, the entire patent of which is hereinincorporated by reference, there is described an adjustable intake tube which is coupled to a bellows type of arrangement for hand pumping. A filter bag is connected to the tube by means of valves. As the hand bellows is operated, the debris laden water is drawn into the intake tube and passes through the valves in one way direction into the filter bag. The filter bag permits the water to flow back into the aquarium while retaining the debris in the bag.
The aforementioned patent describes such a vacuum which is hand operated by means of the bellows. However, once the power pack unit is removed from the filter assembly, it is possible that the same power pack unit can be utilized for motorized operation of such a vacuum.